Human figures have suddenly appeared in the first floor windows of the boarded-up Headlands building in Penarth

For the first time in many years figures have appeared again in the previously boarded-up windows of the 150-year-old Penarth Hotel, the massive grey stone building which subsequently became a children’s home.

The “faces” are window-sized photographs installed across the first floor of the building by the charity the National Children’s Home (NCH) as the charity’s tribute – commemorating the centenary of the end of the First World War in November 1918 .

The figures include Mrs Gladys Gibbs – who donated the building to NCH, her late husband who was killed in WW1 and children who were brought up in what was then an orphanage and seafaring school

Although the hotel building itself is no longer in use, the hotel grounds are the location of Headlands School which continues to be run by NCH (Action for Children).

The huge hotel had originally been opened by the Taff Vale Railway Company in 1869 failed to prosper and closed during the Great War.

Major Gibbs DSO and his widow Mrs Gladys Gibbs (nee Morel) who acquired the building for use as an orphanage in memory of her late husband. It was originally known as the Gibbs Home.

A post WW1 photograph of a young inmate has been installed in the window of the former Gibbs Home. Here he would have been prepared for seafaring career after the loss of his father in the Great War

An enlarged photo panel shows young sailors at the Gibbs Home preparing for a life at sea. The life-ring on the wall bears the uncompromising message “Fear God Honour the King”

Life in the navy involved iron discipline, a head for heights and a grasp of semaphore signalling

The building was then bought by Mrs Gladys Gibbs (nee Morel – of the Morel Shipping Company). Mrs Gibbs acquired the hotel in memory of her late husband Major J A Gibbs D.S.O., Welsh Regiment, who had been killed on September 20th, 1917, at the age of thirty-seven, during the attack on the Menin Road.

Mrs Gibbs then presented the building and its 5 acres of grounds to the trustees of the National Children’s Home as a memorial to her late husband, for use as an orphanage – a living memorial to the generation which bore the brunt of the greatest conflict in human history.

Mrs Gibbs said the home should be “used for the education and training of boys for the sea and engineering trades, preference being given to the needy sons of men who have fallen in the Welsh Regiment.”

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Penarth Daily News is an independent free on-line fair and balanced news service published by NewsNet Ltd covering the town of Penarth in the Vale of Glamorgan, Wales, UK.
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6 Responses to FACES FROM THE PAST APPEAR IN THE WINDOWS OF “HEADLANDS”

In all the time I have lived in Penarth for many years I have never seen any activity
there
It’s a wonderful sight but what is happening to this poor building when modern flats are being built in the area and this beautiful building could have been renovated!

What a wonderful remembrance of both the cataclysmic times of 100+ years ago and the marvellous philanthropy of Mrs Gibbs – we could do with more like her today. Well done to the NCH for actioning this tribute.